Williamsburg Houses

Williamsburg Houses seen in 1941

The Williamsburg Houses were built in 1936–1938 under the auspices of the Housing Division of the Public Works Administration (PWA).[4] The project was originally segregated, only allowing white residents.[5] It was one of the first and most costly (in 1937 dollars) of New York City housing projects. New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia poured the first shovel of concrete for the project and was a strong supporter of the project despite its cost ($12.5 million in 1936).[6] The site is the former home of Williamsburg Continuation School and the Finco Dye and Print Works Inc.[7]

The initial tenancy rents were set by WPA Secretary Ickes in August 1937, four months before the first tenants moved in. The building's commercial rents were also set, though within six months were decreased by 50%, a result of cheaper rents available in the nearby tenements.

The housing developments were conveyed by the federal government to the NYCHA in 1957. A $70-million-dollar renovation[8] was done in 1999 by the NYCHA's architect David J. Burney.

The chief architect of the project was Richmond Shreve, and the design team of nine other architects was led by the Swiss-American modernist William Lescaze, whose Philadelphia Saving Fund Society building of 1928-32 was one of the first major International Style buildings in the United States. The construction contract was awarded to Starrett Brothers & Eken, which had worked closely with Shreve on the Empire State Building and later built the housing developments in Parkchester, Stuyvesant Town, and Peter Cooper Village.

Williamsburg Houses looking east on Leonard and Scholes Streets in 2012

The project is built approximately 25 acres standing between Maujer and Scholes Streets, and Leonard Street and Bushwick Avenue, its 20 four-story residential buildings occupy twelve city blocks. The buildings of the Williamsburg Houses are positioned to allow a sequence of courtyards, playgrounds, and ball courts between them; a school and community building are part of the site plan, and two curving pedestrian pathways cut through the grounds. all in three shapes; a capital “H”, lowercase “h,” and a “T” shape. The “T” shaped buildings are in the middle of the complex with both “H” shaped buildings surrounding them. The houses are oriented towards the sun at a 15-degree angle. [9] The facades on every building are colored in light tan bricks and building entrances marked by blue tiles and stainless steel canopies.

Ilya Bolotowsky (pictured in 1938) with his artwork.

Because of its innovative International Style design, the housing project designs called for the inclusion of modern art. Working with Lescaze, the NYC Federal Arts Project mural division, headed by abstract artist Burgoyne Diller, handled the commissions. Five abstract murals by Ilya Bolotowsky, Balcomb Greene, Paul Kelpe, and Albert Swinden were installed in basement meeting rooms in the late 1930s. Three of them long-covered over with paint, these murals were rediscovered in the late 1980s. After careful removal and restoration, the Williamsburg murals were installed at the Brooklyn Museum in 1990, where they remain on long-term loan from the NYCHA.[10]

Other artists received commissions for the project but their murals were ultimately not used. Stuart Davis painted a large semi-abstract mural entitled Swing Landscape for the project, but the work was instead sold by the Federal Art Gallery in New York, eventually landing up at the Indiana University Art Museum.[11] Francis Criss completed a 1938 oil-on-canvas mural called Sixth Avenue El, a realist abstraction of a Sixth Avenue El platform. The subject was timely, given that the elevated line was closed in late 1938 and razed in 1939. However, Criss's mural was never installed, instead being located at the Whitney Museum of American Art. According to Time magazine, it was rejected because the color scheme did not match the prescribed colors for the project.[12]

Other artists engaged for the mural commissions were Jan Matulka, Byron Browne, George McNeil, Willem de Kooning, Harry Bowden, and Eugene Morley. Abstract sculptures, including work by Martin Craig and Jose de Rivera, were also part of the initial plans.[13][14] The status of the uncompleted murals and sculptures has not been fully established.